Today’s deals have some good books features, so all four of today’s options will most likely be only good for today!
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Luna and the Lie
Luna and the Lie by Mariana Zapata is 99c at Amazon! She is an auto-buy author for many who love a slow burn romances and her books are pretty long. This one seems to clock out at 600+ pages. I’m personally iffy on Zapata’s books as the two I tried had some major slut shaming. Should I give them another chance?
The problem with secrets is that they’re too easy to keep collecting.
Luna Allen has done some things she would rather no one ever know about. She also knows that, if she could go back in time, she wouldn’t change a single thing.
With three sisters she loves, a job she (mostly) adores, and a family built up of friends she’s made over the years, Luna figures everything has worked out the way it was supposed to.
But when one of those secrets involves the man who signs her paycheck, she can’t find it in her to regret it. Despite the fact that he’s not the friendliest man in the world. Or the most patient.
Sometimes there are things you’re better off keeping to yourself.
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The Girl With All the Gifts
The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey is $2.99! This horror, science fiction novel comes highly recommended, though I believe trigger warnings need to be issued, especially in regard to a graphic animal death at the hands of a zombie. Have you read this one? Did you love it or hate it?
Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her “our little genius.”
Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.
Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children’s cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she’ll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn’t know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.
The Girl with All the Gifts is a sensational thriller, perfect for fans of Stephen King, Justin Cronin, and Neil Gaiman.
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Mirage
Mirage by Somaiya Daud is $2.99! This YA fantasy was mentioned on both a previous Hide Your Wallet and Cover Awe. Readers loved the writing, but mentioned this first book is rather slow as it sets up the characters and world.
In a star system dominated by the brutal Vathek empire, eighteen-year-old Amani is a dreamer. She dreams of what life was like before the occupation; she dreams of writing poetry like the old-world poems she adores; she dreams of receiving a sign from Dihya that one day, she, too, will have adventure, and travel beyond her isolated moon.
But when adventure comes for Amani, it is not what she expects: she is kidnapped by the regime and taken in secret to the royal palace, where she discovers that she is nearly identical to the cruel half-Vathek Princess Maram. The princess is so hated by her conquered people that she requires a body double, someone to appear in public as Maram, ready to die in her place.
As Amani is forced into her new role, she can’t help but enjoy the palace’s beauty—and her time with the princess’ fiancé, Idris. But the glitter of the royal court belies a world of violence and fear. If Amani ever wishes to see her family again, she must play the princess to perfection…because one wrong move could lead to her death.
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Best Served Cold
RECOMMENDED: Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie is $3.99! I have a much-loved mass market of this and Monza is one of my favorite antiheroines ever. This book is dense, graphic in its violence, and everyone is kind of terrible in their own ways. But I loved it. If you read and enjoyed Scott Lynch, pick this one up. Oh and it’s a spin-off of an earlier established world, but I had no issues with this being my entry point.
Springtime in Styria. And that means war. Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.
There have been nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them they have bled the land white. While armies march, heads roll and cities burn, behind the scenes bankers, priests and older, darker powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king.
War may be hell but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso’s employ, it’s a damn good way of making money too. Her victories have made her popular – a shade too popular for her employer’s taste. Betrayed, thrown down a mountain and left for dead, Murcatto’s reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die.
Her allies include Styria’s least reliable drunkard, Styria’s most treacherous poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a Northman who just wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the nation. And that’s all before the most dangerous man in the world is dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started…
Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.
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I thought first half of THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS was brilliant—it’s completely unsettling and totally “wtf?” as children are kept in cells and then strapped into wheelchairs and taken to…a classroom where they do regular school lessons. It’s such a great set-up that perhaps the second half of the book couldn’t help but be somewhat anticlimactic. I’m still on the fence about it: First half, A; second half, C-.
I went on a Mariana Zapata kick a while back but the slut shaming and the extreme slow burn to the point that you actually sort of don’t get any romance because 4/5 of the book is the hero being an asshat until suddenly he’s not and he admits he’s been in love the whole time wore me out. I guess I want to actually see my protagonists interact and build a relationship.
I liked the world building in Mirage. There were lots of times where I realized “Oh, the evil people? Those are the ones with the skin and dresses that my culture wears” which was a good wake-up call. But I really didn’t like the characterization of the male lead. They said so many times how smart and strategic he is, but he leads the female main character to make so many dumb decisions that put her life (and her family’s!) in danger. An important instance of telling but not showing that irked me by the end.
May I just squee about a book cover for a book that is a kindle daily deal today? It’s “The Thorn and the Blossom: A Two Sided Love Story”. The reviews are meh, but the cover and illustrations when you ‘look inside’ are simply gorgeous.
I’m not tech savvy enough to link. If you like botanical posters etc, you might like the peek inside, to look at the cover and a few more pages.
Girl with all the Gifts is amazing – the movie adaption as well!
Zapata’s books are, basically, all the same trope. With that being said, some are better than others. I LOVED Luna and the Lie but I HATED From Lukov with Love. Luna and the Lie is long, it is dramatic, it is VERY internalized and only from the heroine’s prospective. But I love that about books and I can see how that would some people. That book is definitely a right mood, right book for me (kind of like that CD that only sounded it’s best on roadtrips??)
I really enjoyed the movie adaptation of Girl with all the Gifts – I’m looking forward to reading the book!
The Girl with All the Gifts was my best read of the year when it came out. I’ve recommended it a dozen times. It’s a bit dark and might not be what you want to read during the current climate, but it’s a fantastic story. (I recall an animal death, but I don’t recall it being particularly gruesome?)
I loved The Girl with All the Gifts, including the ending which I found very satisfying. I listened to it on audiobook, and the narration was excellent.
I taught a monster-themed class this semester and we read The Girl with All the Gifts. My students really enjoyed reading it and had a lot of great things to say in class discussion. I highly recommend it.
I want clarification on the graphic animal death in The Girl with All the Gifts. If this is a pet or a dog/dog-related creature, I will not touch this book with a 10-foot pole. If it’s the graphic death of a deer, say, it will make me sad, but I can’t take pets (or dogs more generally) dying.
@WS: I think it’s a live rabbit that’s eaten by zombie, though I could be wrong. Please someone correct me if I am.
@WS The death was a wild animal (a fox, I think?) that wasn’t part of the story otherwise. And while it’s been a couple of years since I read it, I don’t remember it being described in any detail. More like, they saw blood on someone and a dead animal. So it was sad, but not *that* sad, like a pet death. Though someone who’s read it more recently may want to chime in.
Yeah, there are no pets in GwAtG that any of the characters have relationships with. There is a fox and a feral cat that are used to distract zombies.
I *really* liked TGWATG. Even knowing the hook from the outset didn’t diminish the suspense. But, imo, the movie didn’t do it justice.
I really enjoyed The Girl with All the Gifts. I agree with Marie, the audiobook was excellent.
I really like Zapata’s story lines and the pace of her stories (enough to keep reading her books), but there is a lot of slut shaming, body shaming, and “main character is not like those other frivolous girls”, especially in the earlier books. It’s not even important to the story, I think it’s just author bleed through. She could be amazing. Also, she needs to find a better copy editor.
I adored Luna and the Lie. It’s my favorite Zapata novel after Kulti. The length of her books is pretty much an asset for me as I love the feeling of sinking into them and getting lost in the world she creates. I love also the “slow burn” style of her romances, though I know that doesn’t appeal to all readers. Zapata’s books require lots of patience. Luna and the Lie is more of an angsty, tear jerker than some of her others, and though not perfect, there are just moments here that really tugged at me. It was actually my overall favorite romance novel of 2018.
@ARS22 (#4) I want to second that! I own Thorn and the Blossom in hard copy and it’s such a stunner.